With the advancement of information communication technologies, various wireless communication technologies have recently been developed. Among the wireless communication technologies, a wireless local area network (WLAN) is a technology whereby Internet access is possible in a wireless fashion in homes or businesses or in a region providing a specific service by using a portable terminal such as a personal digital assistant (PDA), a laptop computer, a portable multimedia player (PMP), etc.
The IEEE 802.11n is a technical standard relatively recently introduced to overcome a limited data rate which has been considered as a drawback in the WLAN. The IEEE 802.11n is devised to increase network speed and reliability and to extend an operational distance of a wireless network. More specifically, the IEEE 802.11n supports a high throughput (HT), i.e., a data processing rate of up to above 540 Mbps, and is based on a multiple input and multiple output (MIMO) technique which uses multiple antennas in both a transmitter and a receiver to minimize a transmission error and to optimize a data rate.
With the widespread use of the WLAN and the diversification of applications using the WLAN, there is a recent demand for a new WLAN system to support a higher throughput than a data processing rate supported by the IEEE 802.11n. A next-generation WLAN system supporting a very high throughput (VHT) is a next version of the IEEE 802.11n WLAN system, and is one of IEEE 802.11 WLAN systems which have recently been proposed to support a data processing rate of above 1 Gbps in a MAC service access point (SAP).
To effectively utilize a radio channel, the next-generation WLAN system supports multi user-multiple input multiple output (MU-MIMO) transmission in which a plurality of non-access point (AP) stations (STAs) concurrently access to a channel. According to the MU-MIMO transmission, an AP can transmit a frame concurrently to one or more MIMO-paired STAs.
When exchanging a frame according to the MU-MIMO transmission scheme, a receiver uses a plurality of spatial streams. Therefore, the receiver can use at least one activated receive chains. In a case where the receiver manages all of the plurality of receive chains to receive the frame, power consumption may be increased. For example, even in a case where the receiver can receive a frame by using a specific receive chain or when the receiver does not have to receive a frame which is intended to be transmitted to the receiver, unnecessary power consumption may occur when management is performed by using all of the receive chains. Accordingly, there is a need for a communication method based on a receive chain control when exchanging a frame between an AP and/or an STA.